Epic Camping Post, Part 2

The first time that I had a tin foil dinner was when I went camping with Brett.  I followed his instructions on how to put it together - ground beef, potatoes, carrots - and then I added a bunch of seasoning.  It tasted horrible.  I asked Brett if that was what they usually tasted like, and he said, "Yeah.  Just put a bunch of ketchup on it."  Great.  So now I was eating textured ketchup.  Not my idea of a camping meal.  So this time, I took it upon myself to create a tin foil dinner that actually tasted good.  I'm not one to eat things just for tradition - it needs to taste good too.  They turned out absolutely perfectly.

If you want the recipe (and trust me, you do) you can get it by clicking here.  Of course, we topped the dinner off with some Reese's smore's.  Brett is the master marshmallow roaster, and they were sticky gooey deliciousness.

Kennedy learned how to roast marshmallows (with Brett's help of course) and also how to skip rocks while we were there.  I discovered that I'm about as good at skipping rocks as Kennedy is.  But even though my rocks sank to the bottom of the river, I had fun eating smores with Kennedy all the same.

And she enjoyed her crackers, Reese's and marshamallows separately.  Once they were cooked and all together, she wasn't so sure about how she felt about the hot gooey marshmallow.  She didn't like how it stuck to her fingers.

My least favorite part of camping has always been the sleeping part.  Ugh.  I'm almost always so uncomfortable and I can hear the wildlife which usually freaks me out.  This time was no different, but there were some additions to the misery.  Kennedy decided not to sleep in the bed we brought her in favor of sleeping on the air mattress with us.  Or more specifically, on me on the air mattress.  And I was essentially sleeping on Brett because Kennedy kept squishing us over.  We were all sleeping on one half of the bed.  And to make matters worse, the campers next to us (they were actually quite a ways away, but it sure didn't sound like it) decided to have a dance party right when we wanted to go to sleep.  In the middle of the night I woke up to the Backstreet Boys.  And it continued for the next hour or so.  All Backstreet Boys.  But, in the morning we had a delicious breakfast and two happy kids, so all in all, it was a successful trip.

Epic Camping Post, Part 1

We discovered last Friday that you should actually be prepared when you go camping.  I was in the kitchen putting together our tin foil dinners, and we were pretty much all packed up, when Brett told me that all the campgrounds around here were full.  What?  So we had to wing it and find a campground on our own.  Luckily we found a good one not too far from where we had originally wanted to go.

When we got there however, we found that once again, we weren't prepared.  It cost $10 to stay the night at this place.  No cards.  No checks.  And we had $9.21 in cash.  We also couldn't find a pen to fill out the envelope with.  So we improvised.

We sincerely hope that the state of Oregon won't begrudge us that 79 cents.  We went ahead and set up camp anyway.  Brett, of course, being the master camper, did most of the setting up.

While he was doing that, I got to hold this cute little guy.

We also had to sit in our trunk because we don't actually own any camping chairs, and there were ants everywhere near the fire.  It worked out alright though.  We just know to be more prepared for next time.

Before we had dinner, Kennedy got hold of a bag of nacho cheese Doritos that we had brought with us and made complete mincemeat out of it.  And her clothes.  And her face.

She loved every minute of camping.  She really loved watching Brett build the fire, and he really showed off his boy scout skills!  He built the fire and it went out until it was only smoke.  So he started blowing on it.  I thought, seriously?  But here were the results.  Before:

And after:

Wow.  And next time I will show you what delicious foods we made on that awesome fire.  And the recipes will be forthcoming on my recipe blog as well.

Ward Campout and Cute Shoes

We went camping with our ward on Friday night up in Hobble Creek Canyon.  We had a great time!  We made tin foil dinners, which I had never had before.  I have to admit that I was not that impressed.  I'm going to have to figure out a way to get them to have some flavor.  Kim Waddoups brought her little sister Sarah with her and she was roasting Starbursts for us all night.  Kennedy did start freaking out over who knows what, but we finally got her to bed.  I think that she was just over tired from not getting much in the way of naps.  When we had had our s'mores and played our beanbag game (and been beaten badly) we went to bed.  When we walked into the tent, this is what we found.

At least we know she was warm!  She did wake up once in the night, and I was paranoid that she would wake someone up, but no one heard her, thank goodness.  She woke up pretty happy though and we had a great morning.

Kennedy and I watched Brett play volleyball before we left, although Kennedy at first seemed to only be interested in the magic box with the pretty pictures (aka the camera), she did begin giving dad advice like not to be scared of the ball.  Here is Brett watching while Jason gets a great hit.

We left after that and came home to clean Brett's car that we are going to try to sell soon.  Thank goodness gas prices are going down!  Now for the cute shoes.  Grandma Lee bought these for her before she was born, and she finally can fit into them.  They're still a little big on her, but she'll have lots of time to wear them!  She looked so cute at church today.

I will be sure to put pictures of her in the red patent leather ones just like this that Rachel Erickson got her too.  They are just as cute.  Kennedy is discovering her toes at the moment, so she stared at her shoes a lot.  I'm sure she thought they were cute too!

Blackhawk Camping Trip

Kennedy went on her first camping trip this weekend!  We went up to Blackhawk in Payson Canyon for Brett's sister Jamie's birthday.  A ton of family was there and we had a great time.  It was beautiful up in the mountains and there were so many yellow flowers.  We got up there on Friday night and made fajitas and s'mores.  Then we had an adventure in the tent.  We brought our air mattress to sleep on since we don't have any sleeping bags, but the problem is that the mattress is notorious for deflating in the middle of the night.  After an hour or so we had sunk to the middle of the bed and were squished like hot dogs with mattress on either side.  We finally let the air out of the mattress, and wouldn't you know it, there were some nice rocks right underneath both of our hips.  Thankfully Kennedy slept through the night.  Here she is having breakfast just before 6:00 in the morning.

Waking up in the morning is my favorite part of camping trips.  It was nice and cool (even though the night before was freezing, this was still nice) and the sun was gorgeous.  Our view was fantastic.  We had a great breakfast that included hot chocolate, sausage, bacon, pancakes, and eggs.  After cleaning up camp, we went down to the lake because Jamie had her heart set on canoeing.  Kennedy and I found a shady spot while Brett got his fishing pole in the water.  We also had some great sandwiches for lunch.  Our nephew Brandon found a huge log in the water that he wanted to tame and was trying to paddle it around the lake.  (I had a picture of this, but Blogger is being dumb.)  After fishing for a little while, Brett got in the canoe with Jamie, Lauren and Trevor and they decided to flip it over and walk back to shore Pirates of the Caribbean style.  The venture was successful.

Kennedy was such a trooper and truly a happy camper the whole time.  She has a great time being outside and she slept a lot which was great for us.

We even went to a work party for Brett that night up in Salt Lake at a miniature golf place and she did great there too even though she had already had a big weekend.  We had so much fun playing golf and driving the go-karts.  We'll have to go on the bumper boats next time!

Two Big Girls

Big Girl #1

I am still trying to lose almost 30 pounds of baby weight.  Yes, I know that it has only been two and a half months and that most girls have trouble losing at least a little bit of the weight, but I feel like it's time to get it off.  In my zeal I have made the mistake of starting a running routine with a girl that I go to church with right after my weightlifting class.  I am really feeling it today, let me tell you.

On a lighter note, Brett's mom taught me how to make strawberry jam on Saturday and I now have 18 jars of jam with more strawberries left.  It's insane how much this makes.  But I'm so proud of myself that I made it and it tastes good!  I feel so domestic.  I always love making my cooking repertoire bigger.

Big Girl #2

Kennedy is getting so big!  She is beginning to try laughing, and we are dying to hear when she does it for the first time.  She's getting so much more control of her body and can even support her weight when sitting up (propped of course) for a little while.

She is so great, and sleeps 9-10 hours almost every night!  We are taking her on her first camping trip up to Blackhawk for her aunt Jamie's birthday this weekend, so we'll see how that goes.  We two big girls have a lot of fun together!